


What the water gave me

by hatressoflore



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, F/M, Other, mythical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 06:38:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2841650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatressoflore/pseuds/hatressoflore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An au set in the world of a welsh legend, where a lady of the lake is wed to a mortal man, who  strikes her three times;  to walk faster to get to town, at a wedding when she cries, a funeral where she laughs, and thus finds the marriage annulled. Clara plays the part of a lake dweller, and the Doctor a travelling sorceror. Weird, but hopefully good, for not flirtingbytheway's secret santa gift on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What the water gave me

She had heard of the callous mortal men; oh so pleased to take a bride their minds would never allow them to keep, and of their sisters of the sea; who dragged the innocents as lovers down to the depths no human eye would ever see.

Her father held this myth close to his heart; telling her of their fair and just queen, struck thrice till the marriage shattered, and of her mother, lured away so long ago into that world, away from them, never to return.

He could not bring himself to speak of her if not in simple pronouns; and so she mourned a memory long gone. 

A mother with no name. 

For years that emptiness, the too small memories tugged her heart whenever it was left alone, and then she wondered what the world must have been to tear her away from what she must have thought was love, from who she knew was a needy child, apt to forget her.

Whatever world she saw, whatever man she went for (the later at night the story was told, the more obvious the implication grew) she had faith he wasn’t callous. 

That didn’t mean she didn’t hate him. 

Very few men came near her, near their home, the land was fond of skies of smouldering iron, and a chill that came with teeth, a wind that howled to the moon, rain covering the land like a well formed lie covered a victim’s mind. 

The glimmer of the sun was a rare sight indeed. 

Then, for days on end; the water reflect light, in streaks shining down, and warmth spread down there too some how, pooling over them; till the well recorded cold seemed bleak for the first time. 

Gold from the sun became as sought as gold from a man’s purse, pairs of hands frantically trying to grasp the summer sensation before it became nothing but a distant echo, in the back of their minds.

Some plucky hands even skimmed the surface, squealing in the ecstasy of the unknown, before they folded back into normality, with more prestige than before, worth at least a day or two. 

She pitied them, scrambling like flies, then flying back in caution - it was as natural to her as breathe to feel the air of the land above;, she had often sat from mounds, sum around reeds, and took a glimpse that spoiled the wonder of the human world. 

Her visits turned it into a bland thing, more fact than fiction; and less fun for it. 

When she turned her mind to the absent mother, appalled her face was less than an outline; berating herself for adding details she’d never know as truth or lies; the disappointment of a human world had it’s uses; it was a haven for unquiet minds, she had a feeling lots resided there.  
She could feel the air, that one wondrous thing, could breathe it in, could feel at ease, even with anxiety as white noise. 

As soon as she saw him; the first man to go near the lake in years, a suspicion grew that he had conquered the way of this world, placated the skies into their shiny hue; all the greys going into his face for safe keeping. 

His (coat, was it, human clothing was peculiar) seemed too smart to wear too in the wilds, fitted and sleek, with as little tolerance for nonsense as his face. 

That face was sorcerers face; she was sure of it; it throbbed with magic of loss and loathing, but pars, the lips’ involuntary curl, the eyes of purewater blue, sparkled with all kinds of the other ones, even the one beneath her chest, and in her cheeks. His hair was wild, completing the picture of defiance in the wake of the world. There was no doubt he’d stolen something at first sight, sun or not. 

A little red. daring in defiance came from under it, and she wondered if she could find the red lining in the man, if somewhere within her throat words could be found.

‘’Hello; I’m Clarae. Sorcerer; thank you for the sun.’’ How could she sound so perky?

‘’Hello; whoever you are when you’re in the open. If you trying letting me see you, I’ll call you Clara, it’s much easier. I had nothing to do with the sun, and I for one would like it back where it belongs - not in Britain. Sorcerer’s a very dour old word, call me Doctor.’’ ;Very odd, indeed; for a very odd man with a very odd accent, that, if she had seen the human realms she would have recognised as a thick scottish brouge.’

Somehow, she had an inkling that telling him she thought he’d swallowed the clouds up, in the way that men with magic - he was undoubtedly a man with some form of it - could, would not be very good.  
In a small amount of time, other inklings came to her, not to talk about myths, stolen women, or the living habits under lakes. A painful twitching in her gut told her she’d probably stumble into the topics somehow.

‘’Doctor,’’she swam from behind the reeds, revealing her face from her neck, ‘’You have to be a sorcerer, whether you like the word or not - no normal human would go around wearing that, here, and you ...’’ not have a magic about you, that’s far too revealing, ‘’you just seem like one.’’ her argument fizzled out, at least not too intimate. ‘’Are you,’’ she tried thinking of a decent restarter for the conversation finding nothing, ‘’do you.. have you… have you ever heard of fairy brides? Do you believe in them?’’ She gave the best wry smile, a slick ‘as if you could’, before realising she’d already knocked a topic off the off limits list. 

‘’I’ve seen too much not to believe in everything or nothing - although, with some people I’d rather the latter. I believe in everything, absolutely everything..apart from fairy tales.’’

Why did she think the Doctor, the first man in oh so many years, would be interesting and make any form of sense?

‘’Then you can’t believe in anything. You can’t believe in me, and I’m in front of you.’’ She laughed. And didn’t he know it - her chocolate brown eyes were as deep as the water she was floating in, and he was wary that it would be just as easy to drown in them, every other feature, didn’t bear thinking about, especially she talked to him without hesitance. 

‘’Well; you’re right. I can’t believe in you. That’d be a miracle. Inconceivable. Impossible. Clara, Clara, Clara, my impossible girl. I meant the gist of fairytales, the core, the moral that scares children into good to vanquish evil. Evil is not so easily defeated. The details, however, I can, on occasion,quite believe in. Not you., though, not now. Perhaps after I’ve deciphered what it is you are.’’ The little lilts into warmth subsided, leaving him with a voice of calculated cold.

‘’Answer my question properly- the one about the brides. It might just answer yours.’’Aloof, yes, she sounded quite convinceable at that, even though she knew it was wise to be sacred when that tone of voice appeared. 

‘’Are you insinuating something?’’He smirked despite himself, those eyes of his boring into her.

‘’Looks like you’re the one who is.’’She returned his expression, playing at being coy.

‘’Ah, well - you made one fatal mistake, calling me human. There are really multiple reasons why that’s a no no for any true human being. Then, you gave me your mythology Tut, tut Clara.’’ His voice dripped with sarcasm, and, a hint perhaps...or , perhaps certainly, of seduction. It sent shivers through her spine. 

‘’As for the original question, I believe in them all too well. I have personally met the man who made one half of the legend.’’

For a moment, she wanted to hear every detail of the man who snatched her mother from her memory, so she could find him, and burn him, but she realized she meant the ornate, old tale, with their first and wondrous Queen.

‘’I bet you say that about all the legends.’’

'‘No; most I’ve invented single handedly, across the globe in fact - I’m very versatile. Sadly, this particular story can’t take me as its creator. That came down to my grandfather.’’

A question, one she’d never thought of asking, tickled at her throat.

‘’What’s his version of it all?’’

‘’Not too different, I’d think, not too different at all. You know, she shared your curiosity, that woman of your legends, and unlike the cat she wasn’t lucky enough to be killed for her curiosity. She had to see love killed first. He saw her beauty, because that’s all that matters, isn’t it,’’ his disdain at that was quite endearing, ‘’he couldn’t see his downfall; or the cruelty of the contract he had made. He was made to live a saint, lived devoted to heand r, as the years went by nearly cut out his own heart with grief. He couldn’t even live in the same county, let alone the home they built. I suppose your lady fair felt no regrets.’’ Though it should have sounded distant, something in the story cut him too, and the quiet bitterness was worse than any vitriol. 

;Her queen did not regret - it was not in the repertoire of queens, but oh, oh how she would, with any thought of eyes like the stranger who seemed not to be in front of her, eyes ten times more mild in their affliction than her love’s. 

His eyes were layered with a new discomfort, and awkwardly, a hand eked out.

‘’Our monarchs are the worst of all our men. Or, in your case, fey. S’ppose it could, Clara, become goodbye now.’’

She felt compelled to join the and with hers, and another jolt through those eyes seemed to show she had done the right thing, though, swimming closer to the shore, she dripped on the sleeve of his jacket, and revealed more of herself. 

‘’But I have a history with your people, even if I was the least affected of us all. I’d like to be given the chance to, to make it a better one. Would you like to see the human world? I may even get you back here before whenever your breakfast is tomorrow.’’

The human world hardly meant the field and mountains beyond the lake, did it, or it wouldn’t be worth sharing.

Her earliest suspicions were right.

‘’Well, Doctor, ‘’ the name felt just right for him, somehow, ‘’I’d love to. If you admit you are a sorcerer, of course.’’ 

‘’Not in words, Clara, not in words. but..’’ Her eyes filled with a blue, smoky haze, which even blinking could not rid, that snaked around her head, fluttering against her lashes, brushing against her hair - when the haze was gone, a foul noise came a screeching, one she thought would wake the dead from graves, never mind her people, down below the water where her feet were dangling. 

A box appeared, brash and blue and brilliant on the shore, where somehow it wasn’t sinking - a groan emitted - it would,and soon, if it was allowed to. 

Walking into it, shedding her second skin of water as she walked onto the shore, she wondered if this could be love, triumphing against history.

Though she wrestled with that thought, and tried her best to bury it, the seed had been sown, and love, when its whims were greatest, would be known.


End file.
